Case study · Product development
mScreen – Media Planning at Full Scale
In 2018, MediaCom asked us to build a video planning tool. We delivered. Over the next eight years, that tool grew into the planning standard for all of GroupM – used by 2,500+ media planners across 78 markets.
The problem
Great methodology. Hard to scale.
If you lead analytics at a marketing organization, you know two things are true:
Your methodology deserves a product. Excel macros and senior staff knowledge don’t scale.
But you’re cautious about building one—not because of cost, but because of what comes after. You’ve seen tools built in 18 months become obsolete in two years. Platforms that couldn’t add Connected TV when it mattered. Models that broke when cookie-based attribution faded.
The real question isn’t whether your methodology can be productized. It’s whether you can find a partner who’ll still be evolving it with you when your industry shifts in three years.The real question isn’t whether your methodology can be productized. It’s whether you can find a partner who’ll still be evolving it with you when your industry shifts in three years.
That’s the bet GroupM made with MediaCom in 2018. Across eight years, it paid off.
mScreen in numbers
| Markets deployed | 78+ |
| Active media planners | 2,500+ unique, 4,000 active |
| Plan optimizations delivered | 500,000+ |
| Data points processed monthly | 100+ million |
| User growth rate | +7% monthly |
| Engagement length | 8 years |
| Major modules shipped | 3 (TV Support, Post-Buy, Universe Size Handling ) |
What it looks like
The platform in action
Real-time budget optimization across TV, online video, and social channels – showing how mScreen distributes media spend for maximum reach and efficiency.
What changed for the business
mScreen started as MediaCom’s competitive edge. Three things happened that weren’t in the original spec:
Planning got faster, decisions got sharper
Before mScreen, a cross-screen video plan meant weeks of manual work – gathering reach estimates platform by platform, reconciling sources, running scenarios in spreadsheets. mScreen replaced that with direct API access to reach curves from 10+ vendors and built-in co-consumption data. Planning time dropped 80%. Budget savings reached 36% per campaign.
One agency’s tool became the holding’s operating system
Mindshare, Finecast, and others adopted it. Within a few years, mScreen was GroupM’s planning standard – and methodology improvements that once took years to propagate now shipped to every market in one release.
The platform stayed current while the industry shifted underneath it
Connected TV, VTR, the fade of cookie-based attribution – mScreen absorbed each shift without a full rebuild, because we’d architected for change and kept building the next module.
The outcome that matters: across eight years and four major industry shifts, mScreen never aged into a legacy system.
What clients say
Real feedback from engineering leaders we’ve worked with.
“We worked with Codeweaver on a global cloud-based application that has been successfully rolled out to over 50 markets. Despite extremely short deadlines, they managed to deliver reliable software with an intuitive, user-friendly interface, which makes us proud to demonstrate in front of internal and external stakeholders.”
Marcin Gałusza
BI & Technology Director, EssenceMediacom
Process – the evolution
We didn’t measure this engagement in fixed phases. We measured it in modules shipped as the industry demanded them.
2018 – 2019
Launch with MediaCom
Core campaign planning engine. We encoded methodology that had previously lived in Excel macros. One agency. Focused scope. Production-grade from day one.
2019 – 2020
Post-Buy reach estimation.
Planners needed to validate delivery against ad-server impressions external trackers didn’t always capture. We built the module that closed the measurement gap.
2020 Onward
Vendor integrations.
Direct API connections to the platforms planners actually buy on – Google, Meta, TikTok, Teads, Snapchat, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify and others – built and maintained continuously as each vendor evolved its API.
2021 onward
Rollout across GroupM
As MediaCom proved the model, the platform expanded to other agencies in the holding. Multi-tenant architecture, GroupM identity integration, market-specific configurations. The tool grew from “MediaCom’s tool” to “GroupM’s tool.”
2025
Alternative Budget Allocation
Optimization usually returns one “best” plan. We built a module that instead generates a matrix of alternative allocations and visualizes their outcomes in 3D – letting planners explore the full space of tradeoffs and pick the scenario that fits the brief, not just the mathematically optimal one. A multi-month build.
2025
Universe size handling
Each vendor defines and sizes a target audience differently from its real-world population. UniSize reconciled the two — letting planners move between the actual audience universe and each vendor’s target-group definition while keeping reach math accurate. Another multi-month effort.
Key features – built for what comes next
A self-serve pipeline that ingests, validates, and ships your weekly reports – no analyst intervention needed.
Modular architecture
New capabilities shipped as modules without disturbing existing workflows
10+ vendor API integrations
Google, Meta, TikTok, Teads, Snapchat, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify and more, maintained as platforms evolved their APIs
Multi-tenant, multi-market
78 markets, local configurations, shared methodology
Enterprise identity & permissions
SSO integration, role-based access, full audit trail
Production-grade ops
Error monitoring integrated with GroupM’s Jira workflow
Continuous deployment
New features shipped to all 78 markets without coordination overhead